Millions of children uprooted by conflict, reveals UNICEF

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday that conflicts and instability in Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan have uprooted at least 4.5 million children.

“The world is facing the largest refugee crisis since World War II,” warned Afshan Khan, UNICEF’s Director of Emergency Programmes, “with millions of families forced to flee their homes due to conflict and persecution.”

Since the beginning of the year, more than half a million people have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe. About one-fifth of those who have reached European shores are children, Ms Khan said on the eve of a high-level UN meeting on the global migrant and refugee crisis.

“In Syria, a brutal conflict now well into its fifth year has forced more than 4 million people into refugee camps and makeshift shelters,” she added, “and overstretched host communities in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey.”

Afghanistan is the second major source of refugees worldwide; more than 2.6 million have fled the country. Instability and a hunger crisis have pushed nearly 1 million Somalis, half of them children, out of their country. Meanwhile, nearly 666,000 people have fled the conflict in Sudan and some 760,000 people, almost two-thirds of them children, have fled from South Sudan since the current conflict erupted in December 2013.

The UN official warned that children in countries in conflict are under daily attack and at risk of abduction, maiming, recruitment and death. “Their journey to safety is fraught with dangers. Whether they are fleeing by sea or by road, they are often at the mercy of smugglers and have to carry the physical and psychological burdens of war, displacement and hostility.”